At Komatsu, we are always looking for good people to come and work with us. And with 3,200 employees across our Oceania operations (covering Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia) we offer plenty of opportunities for career advancement.

Search www.komatsu.com.au

ALLIANCE TAKES A DIGGER

Alliance Contracting takes delivery of a new PC2000-8 Excavator

Alliance Contracting, which currently has 70-80% of its fleet consisting of Komatsu equipment, started in 2000 working for BHP on its Yandi mine access road upgrade, and has been working in the Pilbara, Eastern Goldfields and Mid West ever since, said Ian Phippard, the company's business development director.

Based in Perth, it has depots in Karratha and Port Hedland, and is active in civil and mining projects throughout WA including the Pilbara, Eastern Goldfields and the Mid West. It has plant and equipment valued in excess of $30 million and more than 200 employees.

Alliance Contracting's current projects include a $140 million open cut mining contract in the Eastern\ Goldfields, including loading, hauling, drilling and blasting and crusher feed, for Integra Mining and a $60 million open cut mining contract in the Mid West, including loading, hauling, drilling and blasting, for MMG's Golden Grove Gossan Hill Project.

Alliance Contracting has recently been awarded a $90 Million Open Cut Mining Contract in the Mid West for Silver Lake Resources on their Murchison operations, the work including loading, hauling, drilling and blasting.

On the civil side, it is close to completing a $70 million civil construction works for Woodside's Pluto LNG Project at Dampier, where it has been working for the last 3.5 years.

"Our first big job and our first association as Alliance Contracting with Komatsu was back in 2004

when we did the civil works and mining for Straits Resources' copper mine at Whim Creek," said Ian.

"We purchased a second-hand PC1250 -7 and four HD785-3s, which were our first bits of equipment, followed by a WA500 and a WA600 loader for the same job."

The PC2000-8, which was delivered in May for the Golden Grove contract, is Alliance's largest excavator.

"This machine is a major step up for us as a mining contractor, reflecting the confidence that MMG has in our ability to deliver, and our confidence in the performance and reliability of Komatsu equipment," Ian said.

"We already have four PC1250s one of which is also on site at Golden Grove and further two that we are awaiting delivery on the Silver Lake Project.

"The PC2000 is loading Komatsu HD785-7 dump trucks in 5 passes; we currently have five of those on site.

"The mine is a copper ore body and for most of this year, we've been removing overburden, and are only just starting to move into the ore body now."

Ian said that Alliance had been very pleased with the performance of the PC2000 since it came to the site.

"Originally we had a loaned bucket on the machine which impacted on performance, but since we got the right bucket the productivity has lifted and is now meeting our production requirements.

"Essentially the machine is operating 24/7; we work two 12 hour shifts a day at Golden Grove, seven days a week in a continuous shift operation.

"So far, the machine has logged 1400 hours, and there haven't been any availability problems at all.

"The only thing we have to shut it down for is servicing, to tweak it up after 500 hours when it was new and

when it had done 1000 hours," he said. According to Ian, an important reason for Alliance Contracting's success has been its relationship with Komatsu and its finance arm, Komatsu Corporate Finance.

"We've had a very good relationship with Komatsu and we've currently got 32 odd machines, including excavators,

dump trucks, loaders and dozers we've got one D375A-6 dozer with another one on the way. "Our Komatsu fleet probably comprises about 75% of our fleet by type and 80% by value.

"We've always had very good service from both Komatsu and Komatsu Finance, who we've been with ever since we started purchasing Komatsu equipment.

"Even our second-hand gear that we purchased back in 2004 was done with Komatsu Finance, so we've had a very good relationship with them, dealing with James Dwyer, who we work with all the time.

"On the service side we deal with Scott Newman, while for sales its Grant Menhennet; in fact Grant and I go back many years together; I have a long relationship with Grant along with quite a few other people at Komatsu.

"Over that time, we haven't had too many problems and, when there is a problem, it is normally solved very quickly," he said.

Cookies are small text files created by a web browser when a user visits a website. Cookies are stored on your device. Some cookies are only stored for the duration of your site visit whilst others are stored for longer periods of time. The information stored in a cookie is transferred between a website and the browser to provide enhanced functionality and improve the user experience when using the website. Komatsu may collect certain information such as browser type and operating system through the use of cookies to improve your experience. You acknowledge this by using our website